


A Rocinante X-Mas

by Wreybies



Series: The Expansive Omegaverse [1]
Category: The Expanse (TV), The Expanse Series - James S. A. Corey
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Play, Anal Sex, Bears, Belly Kink, Explicit Sexual Content, Fluff and Smut, M/M, Mating Bond, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Mpreg, No one has a clue what they are, Omega Verse, Penis Size, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, Shameless Smut, Size Difference, Size Kink, my first ever alpha/omega, the eXXXpanse, until they do
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-02
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-05 19:11:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 10,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16816699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wreybies/pseuds/Wreybies
Summary: The solar system has been inextricably transformed by the protomolecule. Wars have raged, lives and loves have been lost. We will never be the same again. And yet, as the holiday season approaches, the Grand Trickster of the Universe has one more transformation in store for his favorite subject, James Holden.---------------------A|Ω - A|U that departs from canon at a soft spot somewhere around (and partially in place of) Nemesis Games.Being the first part ofExpansive Omegaverse.





	1. GySgt. Roberta Draper

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [FWU_2018_Smutmas_Collection](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/FWU_2018_Smutmas_Collection) collection. 



**December 14th**

Bobbie made her rounds of the Rocinante. Academically, there was nothing to check, but that was the worst of excuses to fail in her routine because everything was always perfect - until it wasn’t. That’s how it worked. A sense of calm wrapped her as her mental map of the ship was filled in, each corner inspected, every hold and compartment viewed and entered, every storage container checked and marked with a grease pencil, every weapon and round of ammunition accounted for, which were, from the perspective of someone trained to think of the ship as both home and weapon, problematically low.

Low ammunition notwithstanding, she imagined a bright green checkmark in her mind. In eight hours she would do it all again. So would the other crew members, staggered every two hours. Inside of any tiny tin can hurtling through the void, this routine was as close to a religion as many would come, though, right on cue on the fourteenth of December, and in true Martian fashion, all of the Rocinante’s displays switched to a holiday theme when idle, with images for Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza, and a host of other traditions dancing across the screens, from one to the next, in a linked array.

She climbed to the bridge to relieve Alex. It was a little early, but Alex had pulled more than his fair share in the chair and the sudden shift in colors and tones within the Rocinante put her in a generous mood, so she wanted to give him some extra bunk time.

Alex was softly humming to himself in his tuneless way. Bobby never knew what song was in his head, but the sound itself was a happy sound, Alex deep in the routine of flying the ship. It was his safe place, his home, in a way of speaking, as much as routinely checking everything checkable on board the ship.It was the same task, really, just digital rather than physical. He ran through the Rocinante’s flight pattern, her trajectory, her speed, her pitch, her yaw, even though the ship’s systems could and would check these things with a speed and accuracy no human could replicate, still, doing so was a way to stave off the unforgiving effects of the law of probability. With enough chances, the error that could happen would happen.

“Hey, cowboy, how ’bout you let me take this filly for a while?” she asked.

Alex chuckled at the way she aped his accent. His face said Mumbai; his voice said Houston. 

Not all Martians affected that heavy Texas drawl, cultural remnant pointing to how and where the great Martian experiment had started, and Bobbie certainly didn’t have the slightest trace of it in her normal speaking voice, but she knew the lingo and could slide into the accent like a hand into a glove whenever it suited her. Alex was a traditionalist and regardless of his ethnic background, he was a Martian through and through, and his heavy accent was his badge to that effect. 

“I thank you kindly, missy.” Alex unbuckled himself from the safety harness and signed out from the panel so that Bobbie could sign in.

“Seems like lately you and me been holding the reigns to this here sleigh more often than not,” Alex commented. “How much planning can the Cap and Amos need? Jim usually flies by the seat of his pants.”

Bobbie snorted. “Sure… planning,” she said cryptically.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Alex passed his hand absently through his thinning hair.

For a moment she thought to keep the meaning to herself, but the futility of it in the closed environment of a ship struck her with equal force to how in the world Alex could be so blind to the answer.

“Seriously, you’re gonna’ tell me you don’t see what’s going on between those two?”

Bobbie enjoyed watching the realization flower and spread across his face. Men were so simple; how they managed to misunderstand one another so often left her perplexed.

“Ho-Lee shit, Bobbie. How long’s that been going on?” 

“Remember the last fight they got into?”

“Yeah. Dumb squabble about the routing of the communication array.”

James and Amos had griped and pecked at one another from one end of the ship to the other.

“Remember who was supposed to relieve you after that fight?”

“Yeah, Jim.”

“Who actually relieved you?”

He thought about it a second, then said, “You did.”

“Since then.” She raised her eyebrows as if to say _there ya’ go_. It had been almost cliché when Bobbie found them together in the canteen, for a split second thinking they were locked in a physical fight, but then clearly, obviously, that’s not what was going on. 

Alex’s eyes unfocused as something passed through his mind. Bobbie strapped herself into the seat while his thought process unfolded.

“That wasn’t long after Naomi left,” he said, his voice little more than a whisper.

Bobbie shrugged. Who fucked whom was not her business unless someone made it her business and ever since the Captain and Amos had been not-so-discreetly sharing bunk time - or at least fuck time - things on board the Rocinante had been quiet and orderly.

Their destination - the protomolecule ring that had flipped up off of Venus and traveled to the edge of the solar system - was still weeks away. A little peace was not something to go unappreciated.

“’Tis the season to be jolly,” Bobbie sang to herself as she logged in.

“Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la, la-la.” The off-key tone in Alex’s voice said he hadn’t missed the connotation.


	2. Amos Burton

** December 16th **

There were times when Amos was pretty sure he would eat the Captain alive if it didn’t mean killing him. The way he tasted, the way he smelled. When they shared time together, Amos was lost to these two sensations. He could close his eyes and _become_ his tongue tracing every plane and angle of Holden’s body, the tiniest change in texture as clear as if it were under an electron scanning microscope.

Holden groaned deep in his throat.

Amos buried his face into Holden’s underarm, one large mitt of a hand cradling the back of Holden’s skull, the other lost somewhere under their entwined bodies, plying Holden’s ass.

Holden groaned deeper.

Amos came up for air and said, “This is mine.” He pressed a finger deep into Holden.

Holden arched his back, not pulling away, but instead pushing his ass firmly against Amos’s hand. A crooked, boyish grin belied the dark dilation of his eyes.

“What if I said you’re _mine_?” Holden responded.

Amos tipped his head to one side then the other, feigning contemplation. “Sure, that works the same.”

Amos untangled himself, grabbed Holden’s legs and folded him over, ass in the air. Holden had a pretty pucker, pink as you please. Amos lapped his tongue over it and Holden shuddered beneath. Amos guided Holden’s arms, prompting him to hold his own legs in place so that Amos could shuck his work pants without pulling away from the object of his desire.

The pants slid off and Amos’s tongue went to work.

He sucked at Holden, then drove his tongue in as deep as possible. Holden gasped in response. Amos drove on, his senses narrowing again to just his mouth on Holden’s ass, his fist wrapped around his own cock.

Holden’s hands worked their way down Amos’s sides, pulling the much larger man up to face him again. Amos kissed him fiercely, the head of his cock pressing against Holden’s entry. As always, there was a moment where Holden became like the Rocinante, sealing off any entry, then it gave just a little. Amos held there, just past the iris, letting Holden breathe through the discomfort. Holden slid his hands to Amos’s ass cheeks, arched his back in a strange undulation, and Amos drove in to the hilt.

Holden’s eyes rolled back, his mouth was slack, panting.

“I swear every time we do this your cock is bigger than before.” Holden clung to Amos, wrapping his legs around him driving him further in.

Amos rocked back and forth, knowing that even fully sheathed, Holden still needed a minute. He kissed him slowly, languidly, playing his tongue across Holden’s lips, over his chin, down into the dip at the bottom of his throat, up to where his ear met his cheek. Holden moved in perfect sync, offering places to be enjoyed a split second before Amos sought them out.

“Christ, man. Fuck me!” Holden rasped.

Amos didn’t need to be told twice.

He reared up, gripping Holden at the waist and pulling him into his lap. It had already been established that this was Holden’s favorite position. He wanted to see Amos’s body, his muscles, his broad, deep chest, his belly, which wasn’t nearly so flat and ripped as Holden’s, but which Holden said was perfect and beautiful exactly as it was.

Amos pulled out almost to the tip. Maybe Holden was right. Maybe it was bigger than before. Hard to know and harder to care when Holden’s beautiful trim body was laid before him, pale as the stars, the furnace of the smaller man’s ass wrapped around his cock. He plunged in and Holden fisted the sheets at his sides, his face drawn into a spasm that was impossible to read. Pleasure or pain, or both at once.

The smell of Holden’s skin was intoxicating. The tiny room faded behind Amos’s closed lids and he was a god. Holden was also a god, of a different sort. Two halves of a whole, connected through a sacred bridge of flesh and smell and taste.

Amos lifted Holden into his arms as he knelt there on the crash couch. Holden wrapped his arms around Amos, hardly managing to encircle his huge chest while Amos held the smaller man so tightly he could feel his back pop. Holden drove himself onto Amos, taking control of the action, somehow holding Amos deep inside of him, though the strokes seemed long and complete.

Holden’s head flew back and a guttural sound issued from him, hot streaks of seed jetting between their bellies. That was all it took. Amos roared and the gush of semen burned through him and out of him in a way he had never experienced. It was hot and he was uncannily aware of the entire route as it passed from deep within in him to find a new home deep within Holden. It burned long and fierce, each throb more powerful than the last. It rose to a crescendo and Amos genuinely felt the room shrink away until he realized he’d been holding his breath and then inhaled loudly.

“What the entire fuck was _that_?” he panted into Holden’s ear.

“I don’t know, but… you’re stuck inside of me.” Holden’s voice was faint and fluttering.

“I thought that was you gripping down,” Amos replied.

Holden tried to separate from Amos and they both realized something unusual was going on.

“Nope, not me. Definitely you,” Holden looked into his eyes and where Amos expected to see worry or concern, he saw something very different. He saw himself reflected back in the smaller man’s gaze. He saw how strong and imposing he seemed in Holden’s eyes. For a moment he swore he felt Holden’s side of the physical equation, what it was like to be impaled on the soul-ripping girth of Amos’s cock, and the impossible bliss and satisfaction of being filled with his seed.

Amos laid Holden gently back to the bed and said, “Well, I guess we’re just gonna have to wait for this to subside.”

“I have a better idea,” said Holden, reaching back to find the globes of Amos’s ass once again. He pressed into Amos and gave him an almost feline cut of his eyes.

“You sure?” Amos asked.

“Shut up and fuck me.”


	3. Captain James "Jim" Holden

**December 20th**

Holden tried not to take things apart, as was his habit. He tried to ignore the unabated drive to seek Amos out. He had very little success in either endeavor. He hadn’t been this horny since he was a teenager. No. Correction. Not even as a teen had he been this horny. His genetically engineered good looks had made finding girlfriends and boyfriends as easy as just asking, but _this_ was something else.

 _Amos_ was something else.

Holden could track him through the ship on scent alone.

He couldn’t be near Amos when Bobbie or Alex was around. That wasn’t too hard to manage given the skeleton crew of four people running a ship meant to house twenty-five to thirty souls.

But there wasn’t much to do as they hurtled to the edge of the system. A rare slice of calm had enveloped the Rocinante after so much action.

What would Naomi think?

No, better not to think about that. She left. She had things to deal with, things to handle, things she didn’t want Holden to see or know about.

Holden understood that. It killed him a little every time he thought about it, but he understood.

If he ever saw Naomi again, hopefully, she would be as understanding.

The cartoonish holiday images rolling from screen to screen down each hall and through each bay unnerved him. It made him too aware that he was away from his family for yet another Christmas, and he deeply missed what he knew to be a singular luxury, the company of his eight parents, with him as the only child, all their attention, all their love.

It made a hole inside of him, next to the one for Naomi.

Holden was in front of the repair bay. He had meant to go to the canteen and get coffee, but here he was instead, where Amos was sure to be, where his nose had led him. Amos side-eyed him and his face broke into a huge grin.

“Captain, I got work to do.”

“I know. I just…”

“Yeah, I know what you _just_ , but seriously, the communication rig falls out of alignment every time I take my eye off it.” He held up a hand to stave off the argument Holden would have given. “It ain’t the routing. I checked it a dozen times. Something’s off with the antenna assembly outside. The actuators must be skipping or stuck or something.”

“You gonna’ go out there and check it in person?”

“I was thinking about it, yeah.”

“Then why don’t you?”

“Because there’s a horn-dog of a captain by the name o’ James Holden who's got his hand on my cock, that’s why.”

He was right.

The bulge of Amos’s cock lengthened and thickened under his hand.

“How ‘bout we close and lock that door before we scare the shit out of poor Bobbie or Alex. Repair bay is a common space, not a bunk.” Amos nodded to the panel next to the bay door.

Holden stepped backward to the panel, a finger aimed at Amos in silent command not to move. Amos held his hands up displaying his innocence, though the look in his eyes was feral, primordial, anything but innocent. He tapped the panel and thumb-printed the lock, which went red.

Holden strode back to the man who was near twice his size. Slowly unzipping the coverall Amos wore, he took his time watching the big bear of a man come into view, inch by inch. He helped Amos shrug out of the top of the suit, letting it hang down his back. The trail of fur that ran down his belly was magnetic. Holden couldn’t take his eyes off of it. He leaned into Amos’s chest and just breathed him in. It was powerful, earthy, rich, like a forest floor after rain. Holden was ready to dive into that landscape, into this man’s arms. When they came in around him, they were trees, huge and ancient, in some hidden copse where no human has ever trod.

Amos gathered him to his chest and held him until their heartbeats synchronized. It took only the slightest change of perception to imagine it was Amos’s heart beating within his own chest, filling him, guarding him.

Emotion welled in Holden and he let it come, safe within the fortress of those mighty arms, the pain of missing his family, the void that was Naomi's absence, the guilt because she had had to leave him to do battle with ghosts from her past life, that he couldn’t be the one holding the sword, it filled him with shame.

Amos gripped him ever tighter, one hand coming up to his head, leaning him into his shoulder.

Who _was_ this man? Where did _this_ Amos come from? Why had this version shown up directly after Naomi left?

What the _fuck_ was going on?

Amos pulled his head back by the hair and locked his mouth on Holden’s. There was no resisting him. He breathed into and out of him as they kissed and the fire deep in his groin lit like the trail of an Epstein drive against the velvet black of space, actinic and piercing.

Holden unzipped the rest of Amos’s coverall and hauled out his cock. It was shocking. At least as long and wider than his forearm. He pulled away from Amos to look at it, to confirm the implausible data his hand was giving. It was much bigger. There could be no doubt.

Amos just grinned down at him, wolfen, smugly satisfied at the look Holden could only imagine he had on his face. He pushed Holden back to a work table, swiped it clear with a single stroke, though a few of the magnetically attached items clung and wobbled precariously at the edge. Those great tree arms swooped in and his shirt was gone. He quickly slicked off his pants.

Amos flicked the coverall off his feet and stood there like a granite cliff. Certain offices in the administration department of Holden’s mind checked out for lunch when Amos took a second to lubricate the fingers of one hand with spit, kneeled, took Holden’s cock into his mouth and the slicked-up hand went exploring between the cleft of Holden’s ass. He had Holden’s cock completely engulfed, seeking to somehow take him in even deeper.

Holden braced against the table but Amos quickly stood and leaned him back, legs in the air, Amos’s fingers sliding back home, his mouth coming again unto Holden’s cock.

When the moment came for Holden, it came hard and sharp, emptying into Amos’s mouth.

Amos stood and spit into his hand, slicking his cock.

The idea of taking it, of being split by that impossible cock filled Holden with equal parts fear and anticipation. The look on Amos’s face said this was going to happen, regardless. Holden nodded quickly and Amos brought the tip up against him, pressing gently but firmly. Holden nearly screamed but something hit his nostrils, that woodland loam scent amplified, and something happened inside of him, a relaxing. Amos bore down and the pain was exquisite but bearable. He was compelled to arch his back as Amos entered, and not for the first time, Holden was taken by the sensation that Amos’s cock had come into a place in his body of which he had never been aware. Amos swelled within him, locking them together, promising to bring Holden to climax again and again, making good on that promise until Holden felt spun out and dizzy. When he rasped “Here it comes” into Holden’s ear, he felt it, no denying it, the sensation that wherever Amos’s cock had made its home, it was swelling and filling him with his seed. When Amos came for the second time, Holden’s typically flat abdomen was slightly distended, and a hunger he hadn’t realized was a hunger until just now, dissipated. It was as much euphoria as a relief, a need being satisfied.

They lay there for an indeterminate amount of time, kissing softly like puppies until Amos was finally able to pull out. Holden winced against the anticipated gush of fluid, which did not come.

Amos retrieved his coverall and stepped into it up to the waist, his heavy swollen cock still quite noticeable behind the fabric.

“I’m not saying I wanna’ stop doing this, but you do realize something really strange is going on, right?” Amos leaned over him and the smell of him, the musk that had hit him earlier hit him again, but changed somehow, softer, sunnier. “You’re not the first guy I ever fucked, but I have _never_ wanted to fuck a guy - or a woman for that matter - the way I want to fuck you. And this?” He swept his fingers over the bulge in his pants. “I ain’t a small guy, but this thing is twice the size it ever was, and that’s a lot harder to explain away.”

“Yeah, agreed on all counts. Not to mention…” Holden passed his hand over the slight rounding of his stomach.

“Did I do that?” asked Amos.

Holden arched his eyebrows and nodded in the affirmative. "I think maybe we should go to the med bay."


	4. Alex Kamal

**December 20th**

Alex did his best to keep a straight face. It was clear his best was not very good.

“Amos, your penis measures twenty-two centimeters when flaccid. That’s… that’s a mighty big cock. And the thickness… I’m not sure what I’m expected to say to this.”

“I didn’t whip it out for the applause, asshole." Amos thankfully tucked away that gobsmacking behemoth. "I ain’t never had no complaints, but _this_ is not my cock.”

“You’re telling me it’s grown?” he snarked.

“I’m telling you that _this_ is almost twice the size it used to be, and it did _that_.” He lifted Holden’s shirt and pointed to the distention.

“Look, Amos, I've only just got my mind wrapped around the idea that you two are going at it, which isn't my business, I know, but _what the fuck_ , did you punch him with it?” Alex asked, now seriously.

“Alex, that’s my cum inside of Holden. Are you getting the picture now?”

Alex’s head drew back in surprise.

“Okay, get in the chairs,” he ordered. He snapped the diagnostic cuff over each of their right arms and ran both chairs for a complete physical.

Within less than fifteen seconds the panels around the chair in which Holden was sitting began running a green and white band of light around their edges, rolling down, barber pole style.

By the time Alex had walked to those panels, the ones attached to Amos’s chair began a similar dance, this time in red and white.

“No. Fucking. Way.” Alex stared at the screen in disbelief. He glanced at Holden and then back to the screen.

“Am I dying? I’m dying. Jesus, fuck!” Holden hissed out through clenched teeth.

“Relax. You’re not dying, not even a little bit, but this is completely outside my skillset.” He thumbed the internal speaker button on the wall. “Bobbie, unless there’s a pressing reason not to, put’er on auto and please come to the med-bay.”

There was a pause, and then from the speaker, Bobbie's voice said, “Um… Hard copy on that. Be there in a sec.”

It took her less than three minutes. Her tall frame swept through the med-bay entrance, alert, her dial set somewhere between lethal soldier and concerned friend.

“What’s up?” she asked as she noticed Holden and Amos in the chairs. She took in the strobing lights on the panels and Alex waved her over to the one by Holden.

Her chin tipped in, confusion drawing her brow together. She tapped a few buttons on the screen, calling up definitions and explanations.

“You’ve _got_ to be fucking kidding me,” she finally said.

“Would one of you please enlighten us as to what the fuck is going on?” Holden sounded equal parts angry and embarrassed.

In her flattest, most matter-of-fact deadpan, Bobbie said, “Congratulations, Holden, you’re an omega,” She leaned back and glanced at Amos’s panels. “And you, darling, you _were_ a latent alpha. Not latent anymore. Holden here must have gone into heat and triggered you.”

“That’s stupid,” Holden barked, trying to undo the cuff holding him to the chair. “I’ve had a million physicals. Something like that would have shown up,” he said. Alex undid the clasps and freed him. Bobbie gestured to the screen and shrugged.

Bobbie walked over to Alex, arms crossed in front of her. “You called me down here just so I could be the one to tell them?”

Alex stifled another laugh. “I couldn’t do it.”

Bobbie side-eye him. “You're a child. And an ass. For fuck’s sake, tell me that you cut off ship transmissions before you sat them down.”

“Why?” he asked because he had done no such thing.

“Because James Holden is the first adult omega anyone has seen in a hundred and fifty years, and by the looks of that belly, Amos here has already blessed the mommy-to-be. The ship would have sent a broadband message automatically. Omegas are illegal on Earth and Mars. And of course, it’s James _fucking_ Holden we’re talking about, because… _of course, obviously, who the fuck else_ ** _would_** _it be!_ It’s not like half the solar system isn’t chasing us already.”

Alex glanced at Amos. Amos glanced at the cuff on his arm and his face said _take this off or it's broken_. Alex removed it and it was only then that he noticed the smell coming off of Amos. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it made the hair on his arms stand up with a spike of adrenaline. He couldn’t explain why, but Amos smelled faintly dangerous.

Amos nodded his thanks at Alex for removing the cuff - if not for his rather lackluster demeanor as a stand-in medic - and went over to where Holden had his face just inches from the panel as if somehow it would make more sense if he got closer.

“Don’t worry, Cap.” Amos wrapped an arm around the Captain, and Holden let himself be drawn into his embrace. “The comms array is on the fritz. Broadband ain’t working. Only the tight-beam and that’s aimed due south of standard axis right now. Remember, I was going to go out and check?”

“Yeah, I remember.” Holden’s voice was hollow like someone had scooped him out and left him numb. He glanced up at Amos, a little more color in his voice, and said, “You are going to be a dad, and I am going to be a….?”

“You bet we are,” said Amos, stroking the side of Holden’s head then crushing him to his chest.

Bobbie rolled her eyes and said, “If I’m needed I’ll be on the bridge.” She started to march out, Amos and Holden looking deeply into one another’s eyes, Alex unsure what to do or where to go.

Alex said, “Wait, Bobbie. What do we do? I mean, you’re a woman…”

Bobbie cut him off with exasperation. “Glad you noticed,” she said, pushing a hand under each breast for emphasis. “But I know exactly as much about men having babies as _you_ do, which I’m guessing is fuck-all.”

Alex grimaced in agreement.

“Yeah, exactly,” she responded.To Holden and Amos, she said, “There’s information in the med files.If you can keep your paws off each other for a few minutes, I suggest you do some reading.”She pointed to the text that was already on the screen. “Right there it says your heat may last as much as a month.” 

“But… how?” asked Holden, mystified.

“I don’t know, Captain,” said Alex. “There’s no sign of protomolecule infection in your system, but maybe… Hell, I don’t know. Maybe when that thing was on the ship, or when you were on Eros, maybe just being close to all that protomolecule garbage, it flipped some switch.”

Holden scrolled through the text on the panel. He stopped the text and pointed at what he was reading. “Omegas are never latent, not like alphas.”

Bobbie said, “Yeah, well, we’ve never had protomolecule shit from outer space to deal with either.I’m guessing that wherever that crap shows up, all bets are off.”


	5. GySgt. Roberta Draper

**December 24th**

Bobbie had taken the Christmas Eve shift on the bridge.

Amos and Holden had been quietly left to their own for as much as routine would allow. Bobbie wasn’t particularly distressed by the idea of Holden being an omega. Once Amos repaired the tight-beam array, a brief encrypted communication with Holden's family evinced that one of his fathers, Tom, was a latent alpha. The family, ever in defiance of the state, passed that part of Tom’s genes to James. The same genes controlled the expression of both alphas and omegas. Bobbie didn’t pretend to know how or why that should be. She had taken James at his word and tried to be understanding as he rambled on, giving her the information he had read, which she would never remember, but it seemed he needed to let all the words out of his head in order to have some peace.

Typical Holden. She had let him spool out.

The navigation display was currently low-lit for “night shift” and even the jolly Christmas trees and menorahs danced across the screens in subdued tones.

Someone was climbing the stairs to the bridge, but it was hours before her shift ended.

It was Holden.

He’d gained a little weight, and not just in the belly. It looked good on him. Made him look younger. He had a bottle in his hand.

“Merry Christmas.” He handed the bottled over and she took it appreciatively.

She read the label. “Glenmorangie Signet? Is this real? This isn’t real. This _can’t_ be real.”

“It’s real alright. Enjoy it, share it, whatever. It’s yours. My thanks for just being as normal as all this craziness allows. I need a little normal right now.”

“Thank you,” she said with pretend formality and smiled. "And you're welcome." She nodded at the nearest chair for him to sit. “How are you? Alex and I have tried to give you two some space.” Her face screwed up into genuine curiosity. “Gotta’ be weird, right?”

“Yeah, it’s really strange. I read everything there was in the ship’s files, which wasn’t much, but at least it gave me some idea what to expect.” His face said the academic knowledge did little to buffer the reality of it.

“Amos treating you okay? I know he’s your _baby-daddy_ and all, but I will still totally space him if he hurts you. Just ask. Done it lots.” She goofed a smile because no, she had _not_ done it lots.

Holden chuckled softly. “Amos is… Amos. He sees things in a straight line, but he’s not the same person I met on the Cant. There's a connection that's hard to explain.” Holden trailed off, sounding unsure how to continue, or how far to continue.

“Come on, you’re not going to shock me. We can all see how he’s changed.” She looked at the floor. Did she dare? Yeah, she dared. “Okay, I know you already gave me a present, and I don’t have anything for you in return because I’m a terrible person.” She rolled her eyes comically. “But what I really want is ten minutes to ask you any question I want and you’ll answer it, no matter how crazy. There are just too many white elephants in the room for a ship with only four people. Sorry, soon to be five.”

Holden sighed then gave an amused smile. “Okay,” he said, tapping up a timer on the screen to his left. “You’ve got ten minutes, starting… now.”

“Does it hurt, when you do it?”

“At first, then no.”

“Can’t miss the outline in his pants. Must be a monster!”

“It is.” Holden made a fist and raised his forearm as an example.

Bobbie howled her laughter. “Man, that must be insane! Has it passed - your _time_ \- or is it still on?”

“A couple of days ago I woke up and the tension was just gone, evaporated. We still… you know. But it’s not like before, not blind need. But like I told you before, there are reasons to continue.”

His eyes retreated. Bobbie remembered the reasons he'd mentioned. His expression looked on the verge of sliding to mild panic. 

She pulled him back. “You gonna’ let Auntie Roberta babysit?”

“I’m fucking counting on it!” He smiled his thanks at being rescued from his own thoughts.

Another voice entered the bridge. “Counting on what?” Amos asked.

“Bobbie was offering her services as a babysitter; I was expressing my undying gratitude.”

Amos kneeled in front of Holden and pressed his nose into Holden’s belly, inhaling audibly. He turned to Bobbie, who had blushed at the intimacy, and said, “Yeah, Bobbie can babysit. I trust her. Alex, maybe not so much.”

“Alex has kids, though?” Holden countered.

“Yeah, well, where are they?” Amos retorted.

Holden’s brows drew in at that statement. Amos passed his hand over Holden’s cheek trying to soften his indelicacy. “Sorry, man. I’m just sayin’, Bobbie's a proven asset in a fight. Anyone touches our kid, I imagine she’s gonna’ deal with it right quick and permanent, ain’t that true, Bobbie?”

“Copy that, but give Alex a little credit. I think this is somehow stranger for him than it is for me.”

“That may be the case, but I ain’t putting anything to do with our kid on credit, just strictly proven facts.” He noticed the bottle of scotch and inspected it. “Nice,” he said to Bobbie. “But if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be taking our captain here to my bunk to do unspeakable things to him that I know he will enjoy.I’ll be back in a couple of hours to relieve you, Bobbie.”

She turned to Holden and said, “I thought you said it was past?”

“Oh, it is,” Amos replied for him. “That don’t mean the bloom is off the rose.” He took Holden’s hand and firmly led him to the stairs.

“Have fun, you two,” she called after them.

“Merry Christmas to you, Auntie Bobbie,” Holden replied as his head disappeared below the lower bulkhead.


	6. Captain James "Jim" Holden

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's Christmas Eve aboard the Rocinante, and the daddies-to-be have special things for one another.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Prompt:**
> 
> What's in the box?

**December 24th**

Amos’s slow breathing was the ocean in Jim’s ear. Huge, expansive, washing in and pulling back, as simple as water, as complicated as the origin of life. Well, life on Earth anyway. And life within his own belly. It came warm and soft, and while there wasn’t a square inch of Amos’s body that Holden hadn’t explored at this point, Amos's breath on the nape of his neck was oddly more intimate than any other pleasure they had shared. It wasn’t made out of need or desire, but instead out of trust and comfort.

How it had come to that, how they had arrived at this moment, this conclusion, was another matter. _It all happened so fast_ passed through Holden’s mind but had to be discarded. It _hadn’t_ been fast. It had been slow and in pieces, in fits and starts and angry confrontations and the power-play between the two of them when Naomi had been in the picture. It’s not that things happen fast; it’s that you don’t take into account when they _really_ started and by the time you had no choice but to acknowledge a _thing_ , its gears had been turning for a long time, winding you into its cogs and belts.

The memory of the day Amos had been shot in the head came to him like a punch.

_When I thought you were dead, it knocked all the wind out of me..._

It had sounded so weak and melodramatic when he’d said it. Had he just not realized how much he’d meant it then? Had it been there too, already, even with Naomi in his life? She and Amos had unquestioningly come as a package deal since well before the attack on the Canterbury, but to what extent had he considered the nature of that package? To what extent had it considered him?

He’d grown up with eight fathers and mothers and the idea that their relationship was complex and fluid and intertwined had been unquestioned. He knew what it meant; they’d hidden nothing from him, prizing honesty above all things. And it wasn’t like men had been out of the question. There had been boyfriends. Several.

But nothing like Amos. Nothing like this mountain of warm steel behind him, molded against him. It was hard not to reprocess the man Holden had originally met, the man who fit so poorly into his surrounding world that he needed Naomi as his personal guide. The initial friction that had existed between them, with Naomi in the middle as the peacemaker, had it just been two parts meant to enmesh, held back by the ever-present obstacle of human thought?

But who was he kidding? The man in his bed wasn’t the question.

How do you wrap your head around a definition that’s never once occurred to you, to anyone, not since before the time humans had left the gravity well of Earth?

How do you approach something that big, that hidden?

What would it feel like to have life growing within him? What he’d read had assured him that the point of no return was well behind, that he most certainly was carrying Amos’s child. The med-bay chair had confirmed it, but both had been redundant formalities. He’d known it already. A screaming need that had burned like magnesium within him had been quenched and now lay restive and supine, as content as a cat in a warm beam of sunshine. But that cat still had to hunt and would seek Amos out for the remainder of the pregnancy. The files spoke of changes happening in Amos's body as well, how his seed would change, becoming something else entirely. _Sire's milk_ , it was called. The baby would need it for proper development and Holden's body would crave it, making its demands known through scent.

Holden shuddered, his mind engaging the idea as too strange to process, but his body, in opposition, said his mind was wrong, that this was wonderful, that it was life. The definition he'd had for nearly three decades of who and what he was fought with this new definition, the former a product of a lifetime of cultural signals and messages, the latter a much more ancient creature, self-possessed, soft, patient, wise but also frightening. She would wait for him to accept because there was no choice; her arms would remain open because it was inevitable. And though Holden felt no question that he remained _he_ , this new side, this new room, this new place within him, was undeniably _she_. 

A hand came around Holden, square and strong, rubbing soft circles around Holden’s stomach, caressing the patch of fur that began there and trailed into a forest further below. The strong tip of a finger found his belly button and gently probed its deepening confines. Yes, it had deepened over the past two weeks. Amos called it his _cave of wonders_ and often delighted in tickling him there with his tongue. There was a kiss, sleepy and soft, behind Holden’s ear before the hand found lodging under his chest. Amos drew him in, curling around him, a murmur of contentment in his throat, half purr, half growl. Holden stroked Amos’s upper arm, as big as an average man’s leg. There was a smell of hay and clover and dry, warm earth. The smell settled him like an olfactory sedative. The little knot of worry and concern and insecurity in his chest unraveled.

“Do… do you hear my thoughts?” Holden asked in a hushed voice.

The steady pace of Amos’s breath-sound changed. Seconds passed before he responded, “I feel you.”

Holden shifted so he was lying on his back, Amos’s large eyes regarding him.

“You feel me?”

“I ain’t the guy with the big vocabulary, Jim, but it’s like you’re connected to me in some way, like the cables that run through the Roci’s outer and inner hulls. There’s a panel somewhere in my head giving me a readout and you’re connected to it. I feel when you’re happy and when you’re not. I ain’t gotta’ ask. I’m not saying I _shouldn’t_ ask, but I just know.” One shoulder shrugged. “I _feel_ you.”

“I feel you too,” Holden answered. “It’s scary.”

“You scared o’ me?” Amos’s hand was on his chest, his thumb resting in the hollow of his throat.

“No. Not you. Just…” He slid Amos’s hand back down to his belly as an answer.

Amos slid his hand even lower. He nuzzled Holden’s ear, making suggestive sounds.

“You have to relieve Bobbie in a little bit.”

Amos paused and then slumped perceptibly into the bed. “Yeah, I know.” He cupped Holden’s cheek to get his attention and then pointed across the small space of the bunk room to the built-in on the opposite wall.

There was a small grey metal box on the shelf.

“What’s that?” Holden asked.

“It ain’t a surprise if I tell you.” A huge grin split Amos’s sleep-rumpled face.

Holden slipped out of the bed and fetched the box, feeling a metallic clink from within.

“Not the best Christmas wrapping in history, but… it’s all I had.”

He’d become very emotional in the past few days and the admission touched Holden so deeply that tears welled in his eyes. Amos propped himself on one elbow and lifted his eyebrows at the box, prompting Holden to open it.

Holden lifted the lid and inside was a small pile of bright dog-tag chain and something underneath. He lifted the chain out and a pendant came into view. A perfect circle, half in blue steel, half in what looked like platinum or iridium, with a bar of gold crossing the two halves, connecting them.He flipped it around and its construction became more apparent, gold rivets coming through the other side, connecting the pieces together mechanically. Yes, that was so like Amos to ensure there was more than one kind of join. The letters J and A were laser-etched on the back in a fanciful, scrolled font.

“Where did…”

“Parts from the communication rig after I fixed it.” Amos gave him an _I told you_ so look at the fact that it had indeed been the actuators, damaged at some point in their many engagements, and not the cable routing that Amos had passed through arcane and hidden depths of the ship. “That’s too much platinum and gold to let go to waste. Normally I would just sell it for mass at our next docking, but who knows when that will be.”

“You made this?”

Amos nodded.

The tears ran down Holden’s cheeks. It was beautiful in its simplicity and deftly crafted. Nothing about Amos’s hands would ever lead anyone to think he could make something so perfect, and yet here it was in Holden’s palm, exquisite and delicate.

Amos drew Holden’s hand toward him and tapped the three differently colored parts of the pendant.

“Platinum is you, steel is me, gold is…” He placed his palm on Holden’s stomach.

“It’s us?” Holden asked through tears.

“Yep. Us. Merry Christmas.”

“It’s beautiful.” A pit of dismay clutched Holden’s chest. “I don’t have anything for you.”

“You’re kidding, right?” Amos got up and clasped the chain around Holden’s neck. “I spent a week trying to find a way to have something for you, something that came remotely close to what you have for me. Bobbie was the one gave me the idea.”

“Yeah, but…”

“But nothing. I can wait for my present.” Amos kissed Holden’s stomach and the room filled with the smell of autumn leaves and sunshine in a field. “This right here is all I can think about.” His eyes unfocused for a second then snapped back, ensnaring Holden’s gaze. “I can’t separate the two things. I think part of me even kinda’ knew what was happening when we started…” One side of his smile curled up into a cheeky crooked grin. “Yeah, when we started messing around and then when it became more than that. A part of me knew that we would be connected, that something more was happening. I think that’s why Alex still sketches me out a little. Bobbie don’t bug me. I like having her around, but Alex started to smell off to me. It made me angry to be around him.”

The med-files had explained that there would be smells - powerful smells that had meanings - but they didn’t explain what those meanings were. It didn’t matter. Somehow Holden knew exactly what each smell meant. It was like a language he’d forgotten that he knew, but somewhere in his mind the memory was still there, the words still held meaning. The smell of leaves and sunshine was Amos’s happy smell, his fatherly smell. It was the syntax of love and devotion, the grammar of care and concern. It was the smell that made Holden feel safe and warm deep in a burrow, unquestioningly guarded by his mate.

He inhaled deeply and audibly through his nose, taking it in.

He knew his own body was manufacturing its own smells and pheromones. He wondered what they meant to Amos. Did he smell like love to Amos just now?

“Yeah,” Amos whispered to him. “You smell like love too, so how in the world could you think you have nothing for me? You have everything.”

“Okay, you are one hundred percent reading my mind now, which is freaking me out. Last time that happened it was Miller and the protomolecule and…”

“Yeah, I know.” Amos chuckled deep in his chest. “But I’m not some washed up cop or some rogue application made out of alien shit downloaded into your head.” He scanned Holden’s face, and something in his eyes said he came to a decision “And its the truth, I love you. I ain’t got no more control over this than you do, but that don’t make it any less real.”

Hormones, pheromones, too many - _mones_. Holden wondered if he would ever stop crying. He held the pendant to his chest where it warmed to his body temperature.

He almost said that it was all crazy, that it was just this insane situation that had ensnared the two of them out of nowhere, that it was all just chemicals and reactions to chemicals, that it was just bizarre atavistic biology rearing its head where it had no business.

He almost said all these things, and he knew that somewhere in Amos’s head, that display panel he had described was already relaying the essence of it, reading it all out in blurred letters and words.

But when someone tells you they love you, someone for whom those three words almost never come in that particular order, someone looking at you like their very life hangs on your next words, someone whom you also love, someone whose arms represented home, whose attentions lit fires within you older than time, more complex than words, as primal as caves, as huge as the stars, those aren’t the things you say, even if maybe you’re thinking them.

“I love you too. Merry Christmas… papa bear.”

"Papa bear?"

“Don't like it?”

Amos pulled him in. "Nah, I love it. But I ain't calling you mamma bear. How 'bout just _daddy_?"

"Yeah, I like that."


	7. Amos & Jim

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Christmas day can sometimes be a mess when it comes to family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Prompt:**  
> 
> 
> Christmas Day from hell

****

**Amos Burton**

**December 25th**

With the tight-beam repaired, the crew sent a message to the most powerful person within thirteen light-minutes of the sun.

Chrisjen Avasarala had the uncanny ability to make you feel like a child who’d stolen money from her purse, though she wasn’t your mother and was five hundred and eighty million kilometers away.

The look of disappointment on her face was prolonged, as though she’d forgotten she had already started the transmission. That wasn’t remotely likely, not with Chrisjen. She knew perfectly well what she was doing and was using her skills to best effect. Her response had taken three hours to arrive, so she’d had a good hour to contemplate her words, assuming she got the initial message immediately, of which the crew had little doubt.

As always, she looked as regal as Punjabi royalty, a woman who had come into beauty later in life, the kind of beauty that is made of time and experience, not to be confused with the unearned prettiness of youth.

Amos turned to Holden, opening his mouth to speak when he was suddenly cut off by Chrisjen.

“I want to ask _why_ , why is it always _you_ at the other end of the screen when the universe wants to laugh in my face and make all my work come to nothing? War between the Inners and the Belters - James Holden. Life from outer space trying to destroy us - James Holden. Insane creatures made from that alien life - James Holden.”

She paused, looking into the screen as if she could see them at the other end of the solar system, peering into the void for a shred of sense to all of this.

Bobbie said quietly from her seat, arms crossed in front of her, “Maybe the war, but the protomolecule was going to happen with or without James Holden.”

“Thanks, Bobbie,” Holden whispered.

Avasarala’s image continued. “But every time I ask why, something else smacks me in the fucking face.” She leaned back into her chair, lacing her fingers over the peacock green and blue of her sari. Her jaw worked as she clicked teeth together behind lips pressed shut.

“Pause it,” said Amos, his voice a deep, dark cloud. To Holden, he said, “She’s gonna’ say some shit and make some demands, but whatever she says, fuck that.”

“Sure, because Avasarala is **so** used to taking ‘fuck that’ as an answer,” Alex said and immediately regretted it when daggers came at him from both Amos and Bobbie. He tried to shrink into his chair with little success.

“We’re on the other side of the solar system. What can she say or do that affects us?” asked Jim.

There was silence for a moment and then Amos said, “Maybe Alex has a point. Her reach is pretty damned long and for an old lady, she punches like a man. Play it, Bobbie.”

Bobbie tapped the screen.

“Perhaps you are Nataraja. I don’t expect you to know who that is. It’s another way to refer to Shiva, the destroyer.” Her head tipped slightly to one side, inviting them to let that sink in. “Nataraja is Shiva as the lord of the dance. He holds ignorance under his foot so that as he dances, destroying everything in his path, wiping the slate clean, the new beginning can have a better chance.”

The crew glanced at one another. Amos wrapped his arms more tightly around Holden.

“I want you to do something for me,” Avasarala said from millions of kilometers away.

“Told you,” said Amos. “Here it comes.”

“Name the baby Kavish.” She breathed audibly through her nose and seemed to deflate in the slight lunar gravity. “Kavish is one of the names of Lord Ganesh, who is the child of Shiva and Parvati. Shiva destroys and Ganesh blesses the new beginning. Ganesh is a little too on the nose, though. Kavish.”

“That’s it?” whispered Holden.

“That’s all,” responded Chrisjen across a gulf of time and space, leaving them all with the spooky sensation that she was in the room. “Do it for an old granny who’s lost too fucking much already. Do it for your friend. We are friends, right? Tell me you’re my friend and not my enemy in poorly veiled disguise. Tell me that this old lady, who has bent over backward, literally sometimes, to save your skin, tell me that you’re not my enemy. Tell me you’re just a karmic point in life around which history is rotating. I can deal with that. Sometimes I feel that way myself, like a point around which the stars are turning. I don’t like it. It gives me vertigo.”

She was silent for a moment and then said, “And Merry Christmas. Yes, I celebrate that too. An old broad like me has to hedge every bet she can.”

The image froze and then the screen went blank.

“That’s all of it,” said Bobbie.

Holden disentangled himself from Amos’s arms and walked down the ladder to the next deck.

Amos made to follow.

Bobbie restrained him with just a touch.

“Let him go,” she said.

Amos looked down at her hand and a split second of malice swept across his face met by the trained, steely efficiency of Bobbie’s resolve. Both evaporated in the time it took each to recognize the other.

“Easy there, you two,” Alex said. “She’s right, Amos. Give him some space. I can’t even imagine what any of this is like for him.”

“For **_him_**?” Amos growled. “What about **_me_**?”

“What _about_ you?” Bobbie countered. “You think we don’t care how you feel? We do.”

Amos stood silent, his eyes switching from Bobbie to Alex. “That message was weird,” he finally said. “That ain’t like Chrissy.”

“She did sound kinda’ defeated,” Alex admitted.

“Yeah,” Amos sighed. “Defeated. Good word. I think we’re on our own on this one.”

“We’re always on our own,” said Bobbie. “It's just us and it’s only ever been just us. But it will always be us. You’re not alone and neither is Holden. You have each other and you both have us.” She gestured between herself and Alex.

Alex realized a response was expected from him and he cleared his throat. “Yeah, of course, man. I ain’t sayin’ all o’ this ain’t crazy, but crazy is what we do best around here, Amos. We gotcha.”

Amos sat and rubbed his temple and forehead with one had. “James Holden is going to have my baby. How do those words even make sense?”

“They don’t,” answered Bobbie. “But that doesn’t matter. Some crazy piece of alien technology ripping itself off the surface of Venus and flying to the edge of the solar system doesn’t make sense either, but it happened. This is also happening and we’ll deal with it.”

“Kavish. What kind of name is that?” Amos asked no one in particular.

Alex tapped something into the screen to his right. “Means king of poets.”

“King of poets?” Amos shook his head. “What do you think, Bobbie?”

“I like it. Kavish. It sounds strong. But that’s a conversation for you and Holden.”

“I think I should go find him.” He held up his hand. “I know, I know. But he’s been kinda’ fragile lately. I think he needs me. And I need him. Plus, Chrissy’s gonna’ be expecting an answer about that name.”

“You think?” asked Alex.

Bobbie and Amos said simultaneously, “Yes, she is.”

Amos gave her a small, one-sided smile and climbed down out of the bridge.

Amos found James in the canteen, nursing what looked to be a bulb of coffee. When he brooded like this, Amos could see the young man he’d been. He imagined how many hearts he’d broken with those eyes.

“You sure you should be drinking that?” Amos leaned into the doorway.

“It’s decaf. God knows there’s plenty of it,” James replied.

“Decaf?” Amos slowly approached James and placed his palm on the other man’s forehead, pretending to take his temperature. “You sure you’re alright? The James Holden I know thinks decaf is an abomination.”

Amos drew his hand from Holden’s forehead, but James took it and gripped it fiercely.

“Abomination, is that what _I_ am?”

Amos sat down across from him, wrapping both hands around the one gripping him with what he knew to be all of James’s strength, but which felt so slight to him.

“You and me are gonna’ make a deal, okay?” Amos said and waited for James to hold eye-contact. “If you ever have a thought like that again, you come find me and tell me. I don’t care what’s going on. You come find me. Understand?”

Holden nodded.

“You’re James _fucking_ Holden, captain of the Rocinante, craziest sonofabitch ever to come up out of Earth’s gravity well, but you’re not an abomination.”

“She’s not going to help us. You know that, right?” James’s voice was grim.

“Yeah, I know that. Don’t matter. Everything we need is right here. You and me and Bobbie and Alex.”

“I wish Naomi were here,” James whispered.

The admission struck Amos like a fist and he tensed.

James didn’t pull away, he brought his other hand around, pulling Amos’s to his face, kissing the backs of his fingers gently.

“You just said to tell you my thoughts no matter what, no matter where, right?”

Amos exhaled and the tension left him. He felt the hole in Jame’s heart. He felt it.

“Yeah, I did just say that,” Amos conceded.

“Do you think she’ll ever come back?” Holden's voice nearly cracked.

“I don’t know, man. We’ve all got skeletons, but Naomi had some really bad ghosts chasing her. I don’t blame her for going and dealing with them. I buried my ghosts a long time ago, but I know what it’s like not to be able to turn out the lights.” He paused. “Yeah, I know what that’s like. I miss her too.”

They sat there for several minutes, the silence heavy with the presence of missing friends.

Amos asked, “That name Chrissy gave us? You know about that stuff?”

“A little,” answered James. “It’s more complicated than just this, but it’s about new beginnings. And maybe it’s a little bit about hope. Ganesh is the remover of obstacles.”

“Alex said that other name means king of poets.”

“Maybe it does, but Hindu gods have lots of names and lots of ways they present themselves. They’re like people. They can be grumpy one day and happy the next. I think…” James stopped and his brow knit together in thought. “I think there’s not really anything Chrisjen _can_ do for us. We have to figure it out on our own. I think she’s just being an old granny, and a friend, and giving us her blessing as that, not as the leader of the Inners.”

“You wanna’ go with the name she said?”

“I think that after everything she’s done, it’s the least we can do for her. You okay with that?”

“Alright. Kavish it is. You wanna’ tell her, or should I?”

* * *

**Captain James “Jim” Holden**

Holden erased the message for the tenth time.

It all sounded like excuses, or worse, like he was begging.

_Just keep it simple_ , he thought to himself. _She’s heard it all_.

He tapped the screen for the eleventh time.

“I’m not your enemy, Chrisjen. I’ve never been your enemy. I’m just a guy trying to live a life. Every curveball you mentioned is one that came at me too.”

The attack on the Canterbury whizzed through his mind. The unthinking, gut-wrenching panic that he was going to die, all the air sucked from his lungs, frozen in the void. On Eros with Detective Miller, vomit-zombies spewing protomolecule from every orifice. Getting dosed hard with radiation. Had that been the cause? The radiation? The protomolecule?

Did it matter?

Did it change anything?

No.

“I’ve done some stupid shit, no doubt, but I’ve never tried to hurt you or anyone. I’ve only ever tried to find the truth and get some justice. This is my family on this ship. These are my brothers and sisters, and I guess maybe my husband now too.”

Amos’s hand on Holden’s shoulder squeezed an affirmative answer.

“The universe isn’t as simple as either of us would like it to be, Chrisjen. When you only know what you know, sometimes you fuck shit up. I’m sorry for all the things I’ve messed up. I’m sorry for being so low on the totem pole that I couldn’t see the whole field. I’m sorry for all the things I made you have to fix. I’m sorry you feel like you have to ask if I’m your enemy. There were times when I thought the same about you, but that was long ago.”

His lip quivered and he stopped speaking. Amos’s hand was still there, heavy and comforting.

He cleared his throat and continued.

“I’m your friend, and I hope you’re still mine. It’s kinda’ hard to imagine not having the ear of the most powerful woman in the solar system anymore.” He smiled and hoped the sincerity of his words showed in his face.

“It’s equally hard to imagine any situation that’s outside your control or ability to fix. You don’t owe me anything, and I’m not expecting anything, but I need you to know that I’m not your enemy. I’m your friend if you want it. I certainly want you as mine.”

Holden looked up and behind to where Amos stood.

Amos whispered, “Tell her about the name.”

“You wanna’ tell her?”

Amos bent down so that his face was behind Holden’s shoulder and within the camera’s field of view. Holden could hear the huge cheeky grin in the other man’s voice.

“Hey, Chrissy. We’re gonna’ go with that name you gave us. Jim explained it to me. I don’t pretend to know about any of that stuff, but it sounds like a good name to me. And while we’re picking names, I know you hate it when I call you Chrissy, so I’m gonna’ call you Nanna from now on.We’ve been through too much shit together to think of you as anything but family.”

Holden closed his eyes and shook his head slowly. It wasn’t the message he wanted to send, but maybe it was the message she needed to hear. He glanced up at Amos who was beaming satisfaction.

“Merry Christmas, Nanna,” Holden finished. He tapped the screen and sent it.

“Decaf coffee and now snarky sass,” Amos said as Holden stood from the chair. “Who the hell are you?”

Holden leaned into the unmoving bulk of Amos.

“I’m yours, that’s who,” said Holden.

“Look up,” Amos replied.

Holden looked up, Amos’s eyes directing him to the screens.

Mistletoe danced from screen to screen, looping and bouncing.

“Kiss me, daddy,” Amos huffed, his eyes gone dark with desire.

Holden tipped his head up, gently engaging Amos’s lips. They kissed for minutes that seemed without end.

“Love you, papa bear.”

“I love you too. Merry Christmas.”


End file.
